Studying the Patterning Mechanisms and Cell Fates during Limb Regeneration in Ambystoma mexicanum

We studied patterning mechanisms and cell fates during limb regeneration in the axolotl. 1) It is crucial to understand the earliest events of patterning. Since it is technically challenging to study early events, we established single cell PCR. This new tool will allow us to obtain novel insight into the initial steps of limb patterning. 2)We have examined the roles of different tissues regarding their fates and features of proximo- distal patterning. Our strategy was to transplant GFP+ skin, skeleton, muscle and Schwann cells from transgenic donors to limbs of wild type hosts, amputate through the graft and analyze fluorescent progeny combined with the use of molecular markers. Our results revealed that different subpopulations of blastema cells exist regarding two aspects. First, we found that progeny of skin and skeleton have some tissue specific memory since they did not give rise to muscle lineages. However, cells of the skin contributed to other mesenchymal tissues like cartilage or tendons, while the majority of skeleton- derived cells undergoes self- renewal. Second, we performed one cellular and two molecular assays to investigate what tissues generate cells that exhibit features of proximo- distal patterning. Both assays revealed that Schwann cell- derived progeny do not display such features while progeny of skin, skeleton and muscle did. Therefore, we conclude that the blastema is a heterogeneous mix of cells regarding tissue lineages and features of proximo- distal patterning